


time will tell

by epilogues



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Earth C (Homestuck), Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Recovery, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:29:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21626830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epilogues/pseuds/epilogues
Summary: Jake comes to terms with the past and starts looking towards the future.
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider (past), Jake English/Original Characters (briefly), Jane Crocker & Jake English
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	time will tell

**Author's Note:**

> ok this is gonna be a long note so. bear with me please!!
> 
> first off - CW: i tagged everything i think, but i'll clarify a little here for those that may need it. this fic deals with jake coming to terms with the fact that dirk sexually abused/raped him when they were dating in the game. there is no explicitly written rape, but there are some memory scenes that get very close to it. there are also some scenes with light sexual content in general. finally, jake drinks heavily and often in this fic and is implied to use other substances as well. i hope this covers everything + if you have questions please message me on tumblr @smuppetz or leave a comment! stay safe! 
> 
> second off - this fic is... not the sort of thing i usually post, but i put too much effort into it to just orphan it lol. with that said, please don't read this if you're looking for smut or anything like that. also, i am not a therapist of any kind so please don't use this as a reference for coping mechanisms or anything like that. 
> 
> ok i think that's pretty much it! thank you for reading all of that + i hope you enjoy the fic <3

“Okay, Jake, truth or dare?” 

Jake stretches, leaning back against the cool wall of one of the cans that Jade super-sized for shelter. “Uh, truth?”

Dares seem... unwise, based on how many god-power mishaps have occurred so far and how many Dirk Striders and Jane Crockers (one of each, but that’s more than enough) could be made into extremely awkward kissing partners. It’s been a while since the whole birthday fiasco with Jane and since Dirk and Jake broke up, of course, but sometimes it still feels like it all happened yesterday.

(TT: What’s your point?  
GT: I just think that uh  
GT: Maybe we ought to go on a bit of break from this boyfriends business!  
GT: And by a bit of i mean a rather long one  
GT: By which i mean permanently taking a break from all of this hullabaloo  
GT: Youre a stand up fellow and all i just dont feel like i can give you as much time as you expect and i would like some space i think  
GT: Its nothing personal of course and i would still love to be bros and engage in friendly fisticuffs and all that!  
GT: Um  
GT: Thats it i think  
TT: I understand.   
TT: I think I might go think for a while and think about things, but   
TT: I’m sorry for not giving you enough space.   
TT: And if there’s anything else that I was doing, please just tell me so I know not to do it again.  
GT: Hm well to be right honest with you im not sure if i can really think of anything else!  
GT: Like i said youre a wonderful chap but we seem to both be expecting different things out of this little tango and i think its best if we just don’t continue it  
TT: …  
TT: Okay.  
timaeusTestified [TT]ceased pesteringgolgathasTerror [GT])

Roxy grins. “Alright, hm, how about… when did you lose it?”

Jake flushes, the heat starting in his ears and moving to his face, and he doesn’t have to glance to his left to know that Dirk is doing the same thing, if not a little more subtly. The answer is obvious to everyone, even the beta kids, and it feels like a bit of a pointless question. “Well, you know, Dirk and I were dating, and then we met up in the game, and…” He lets the sentence trail off, unable to decide how he wants to finish it. 

_And we just got right down to business_ \- true, and almost unsettlingly so in how fast everything really had happened. Two childhoods of isolation had produced two very different people, and while Dirk responded to people actually being in his life by grabbing onto them, it took a bit for Jake to realize that he still preferred some space. 

_And we fooled around a bit_ \- also true, sort of, in that there seemed to be a mutual feeling of wanting things to be light, casual, fun, but that the mood tried to mature once clothes started coming off. The best way Jake can think to describe it is as if there was a weight pressing down that neither of them wanted to acknowledge. Maybe they were too young, maybe they weren’t ready, maybe Jake was too young and not ready despite Dirk’s clear confidence. 

_And I mean, you’ve seen Dirk, we couldn’t help ourselves_ \- true only in the regards that Dirk is and, for as long as Jake’s known him, been very attractive, and that Dirk certainly had seemed very eager, especially when considering that the feelings he showed must have only been the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. But that would be a lie, ultimately, because while Jake had fun (it was fun, they made it fun, sex is fun and that’s what it was, right), he can’t say that he wouldn’t have minded at least another month or so to get used to the idea. Sure, in the movies they always jump right into bed, but the difference between not seeing another human for years and having sex with one is leaps and bounds. In all honesty, Jake sometimes can’t believe that it actually happened at all.

Still, though, it happened, and it happened in the way it happened, and Jake is not a man to dwell on “regrets” or semblances thereof. It was fun, lots of fun, just a jolly good time all around, and it happened, and that’s that. 

When Jake finally looks up, remembering that oh, yeah, he’s playing a game, it’s not really time for any sort of introspection, everyone in the group is watching him except for Dirk, whose shades are angled at the wall just above Jake’s head. Thankfully, they all seem satisfied with Jake’s half-answer, as not even Roxy or Rose presses for more details. 

“Uh, anyway,” Jake says, clapping his hands together just a little bit louder than intended. “Jade, truth or dare?”

She chooses dare and ends up having to balance spoons on her nose, and the game gradually moves on and on. Jake tries to stay engaged, but he finds himself unable to quite tear himself out of his memories. 

(The Land of Mounds and Xenon is warm, uncomfortably so, and it’s only made worse by the insistent heat of Dirk’s chest where he’s pressed to Jake’s back.

At least Dirk’s hands provide a distraction, in a way, as they skate across Jake’s bare chest, shoulders to pecs and back up again, shoulders to belly and back up again, shoulders to the waistband of Jake’s shorts, and Jake steps away. 

“Hang on, Dirk, did you hear that? It sounds like one of those skeleton creatures,” Jake says, pointing into the distance and praying, for the first time in his life, that one will appear.

No such luck. 

Dirk stares towards where Jake is pointing for almost a full two minutes, but there’s not so much as a rattle of bones. “I don’t hear anything,” he says. 

“I’m right sure I -“ Jake starts, but the words die in his throat when Dirk steps back in front of him and places his hands on Jake’s hips.

“I’m sure it was nothin’,” Dirk says. One of his thumbs dips below Jake’s waistband, just for a second, and his breath is hot on Jake’s face as he leans in for a kiss.

Kissing is good. Kissing is as comfortable as any human contact is, really, and it’s nice and for someone that never met anyone in person before the game, Dirk is really good at it. But when Dirk’s hands slide to the button of Jake’s shorts, a cold anxiety starts to build low in his gut. 

He opens his mouth to say something, but Dirk just takes it as an opportunity to kiss him even more as he slides Jake’s zipper down. And besides, the anxiety is right next to a warm arousal, so it’s fine. 

It’s fine, good, actually, Jake’s getting hard and he loves Dirk and he wants this. Jake closes his eyes.)

“Jake? Do you want to come back with me?”

Jake looks up at Dirk, and it takes him a moment to register the fact that everyone else is getting up and heading into  
their respective cans for the night. Jake had bunked with Dirk the night before, so it would make sense for them to do the same tonight. 

“Oh, uh, yeah, that sounds like it’ll be a fine little shindig! Let’s go!” Jake stands up, brushing invisible dust from his shorts. His smile feels forced, and the past, only a year dead in the first place, feels like it's waiting just behind him. 

That should be fine, though, right? Because Dirk and Jake long since agreed to be friends and to leave the past where it lies and it’s not like there’s anything to feel weird about, right?

 _Right,_ Jake tells himself. It feels significantly less true when Dirk puts his hand on Jake’s back, just for a second, to guide him towards their can. They haven’t touched each other since the break-up, and Jake is almost angry that Dirk just… invited himself into his space like that.

But no, it’s fine, he knows he’s just being overdramatic, and Jake falls asleep that night without thinking about it anymore. 

*

Two - well, technically, two and a couple thousand, but two in the ways that matter - years later, Jake is still on the “not thinking about it anymore” train. In fact, he’s all aboard the not thinking about anything train, if he’s honest. There are a few perks to being a God of Hope, and a big one is that he doesn’t have to worry too much about actually running his business (or doing much of anything, really).

That leads him to today. It’s a beautiful day, like most days tend to be on Earth C, but the remnants of Jake’s hangover are keeping him inside with the curtains tightly drawn. Said remnants are not, however, keeping him from having a fresh bottle of wine in one hand and a pistol in the other. There’s no need to keep his sharpshooting skills, well, sharp, but spending a morning using expensive art for target practice is… fun. It’s fun. 

Jake takes a rather zealous gulp of wine and sets the bottle down onto the floor with just enough force to send a few drops sloshing over the side. He raises the pistol and points it at a large glass statue of a crab-like lusus that he commissioned for this exact purpose. 

It completely shatters from the outside in as a bullet sinks into one claw. Bang, crash, and some stray glass crunches under Jake’s boot as he steps forward to pull another statue from the corner of the room to the wooden target block. This one is shaped like one of the sea beasts he used to fight on the island, albeit not quite to scale. Jake steps back and stares at it for a long moment. 

It’s pretty in an odd, abstract sort of way. The dim overhead lights cascade down and through it, and their colorfully tinted refractions spill across the entire room. Its ruby eyes glint with a malice Jake is pretty sure he isn’t imagining, and its pointed teeth seem like they could gnash together at any moment. Whoever made it (Jake can’t remember the artist, what little distinction he bothered to make between them when he started doing this has long since disappeared) did a damn good job. He hopes he paid them well. 

“Alright, old chap,” he tells the statue, lifting his pistol and aiming it - hopefully - at the yawning mouth of the sea beast. 

The statue, of course, doesn’t respond. Jake fires. 

Bang, crash, a direct hit down the throat and into the statue’s crystalline viscera. A snowfall of glass covers the scratched hardwood floor, and when Jake looks to the corner, he realizes he’s out of statues to shoot unless he wants to drag some of his precious blue ladies upstairs. “Frig,” he mutters. 

Jake leans over and picks the wine bottle up from the floor, taking a long, burning swig. The bottle’s half-empty when he goes to put it down, and while he hates to waste good alcohol, he’s got at least ten more bottles in this room alone. 

He sets it up on the wooden block and presses the little switch that makes it slide back and forth on a track. Not like he’s at the point in the day where he needs a challenge, of course, but he’s never quite been able to escape the way Dirk always told him to challenge himself. 

Jake wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, frowning when he feels the drops of wine in his mustache that are almost definitely going to end up drying there, and lifts the pistol. His finger is dancing on the trigger when his phone begins to ring from the pocket of his bathrobe. 

The sound makes him jump and send a wild shot through the ceiling. Oops. That’s not a first or a big deal, though, so he drops the gun and answers the phone without checking to see who it is.

“Hello?” 

“Jake!”

It’s Jane. Her bright voice feels a bit like a gunshot, but, well, it’s not like Jake isn’t used to hearing those hungover. The fact that she’s most likely calling him for business reasons feels a lot worse. 

“Uh, ahoy there, Jane! What brings you to give me a sprightly little dial on this fine morning?” 

There’s not even a breath before Jane speaks again. “Well, I didn’t want to bother you at this time in the afternoon, since I assumed you were probably doing lunch or something or - nevermind, actually. Look, I just wanted to set up a time to discuss the possible merging of Skaianet and Crockercorp that we talked about previously, and none of my secretaries have been able to get through to you, and I… it would be good to see you.” 

Afternoon? Jake squints up at the clock mounted on the far wall. The face is shattered from an errant bullet and it looks like the second hand is broken, but he can see just well enough to realize that yep, it is indeed three o’clock in the afternoon. Whoops. “Oh, um, yep, that sounds like it would be a neat little soirée, Janey! When were you thinking?”

“I’m fairly busy, but I think I have some openings next week,” Jane says. She keeps talking, but the sudden sound of footsteps draws Jake’s attention away from the conversation and to the question of who or what the hell is in his apartment.

“Uh, hold that train for a moment,” Jake says quickly. He drops the phone onto a nearby table and pokes his head out into the hallway. “Hello?”

“Jake?” a voice calls. It takes a moment for Jake to place it, but then it clicks. Ah, shit. “Jake, are you okay? A bullet just came though the bedroom.”

The owner of the voice, a tall, thin troll whose name Jake cannot, for the life of him, think of right now, appears around the corner. Her entire face lights up when she sees him. “Jake, there you are! Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yes, everything is jolly good, my dear,” Jake says, flashing her a smile that he hopes distracts from his drunkenness, his lack of clothes save for a bathrobe, his lack of knowledge of this girl’s name, the fact that he’d forgotten about her completely up until this moment, and the tinny sound of Jane shouting through the phone back in the room. Yeah, this had better be a damn good smile. “I just threw the ole iron a bit wonky while I was doing some target practice, but as long as you’re unharmed, everything’s righter than rain.”

She purses her lips and makes no attempt at hiding the fact that she very much notices that Jake is wearing only a bathrobe, while she’s fully dressed, and that there’s someone on the phone in the other room. Her face doesn’t fall, exactly, so much as jump down from a skyscraper of expectation to a modest expectation bungalow. “You forgot I was here, didn’t you?”

“Uh, no, um, sweet pea, I just didn’t want to wake you up and -“

The girl sighs. “And you don’t know my name. Pollig said I should avoid you, what the fuck, I’m just going to leave.” 

Jake winces. This isn’t going to be good for his image, and not to mention, he thinks he remembers the sex being pretty good when he wasn’t thinking about Dirk. “Wait-“ he starts, but she’s already gone. “Frig.”

From behind him, there’s the definitive click of someone hanging up the phone. Jane must’ve gotten tired of waiting, heard the conversation, or both, and Jake is really just too drunk to want to try calling her back. Or maybe he’s not drunk enough, it’s honestly hard to tell these days.

With a long sigh, Jake steps back into his shooting room. It seems darker than before, in comparison to the hallway and the knowledge that it’s 3:30pm. The only sound is the soft whirr of the track mechanism carrying the bottle of wine back and forth, back and forth.

Jake picks up the pistol and shoots it. Wine and glass splatter everywhere, making the glittery mess on the floor look blood-stained. The scent of wine is everywhere, and it’s going to be a pain in the ass to clean unless he can convince Dirk to repair the old cleaning bot he made when they first skipped forward. That’s just great.

Jake sighs and sits down on one of the last clear sections of floor, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. That troll girl - he thinks her name was something like Flital or Floral or Fligel - was the latest installment in a series of rather mediocre sex that both participants pretend is good, both for Jake’s sake. Jake’s not stupid; he knows that he’s off the “game” Dirk used to pull him into bed for, he knows he almost always goes for people that remind him, at least, physically of Dirk.

He knows this. He also knows it doesn’t make sense, not really, because he doesn’t look back on his memories of sex with Dirk as particularly positive. Hell, for a while after everything with Dirk had ended, Jake thought he was ace or something. And yet. Here he is. Fucking troll girls every other night and forgetting their names just well enough to start to call them Dirk when he comes, remembering their names again just in time to keep them from running off until the next morning at the very least. What a wonderful, wonderful god he is. 

Moping doesn’t do any good, though. The past happened and the present is happening, and all Jake can do is pretend he’s going to do anything to change the future. 

The future, which, as Jake just now remembers, holds the live premiere of Rumble in da Pumpkin Patch season twelve. Which means seeing Dirk in person for the first time since season eleven’s finale. 

Season eleven ended with what Jake was, at the time, finding to be one of his best runs in the show to date. He was dropping fan-flipping-tastic rhymes to a record-breakingly silent Dirk, and, okay, here’s the thing. _Rumble in da Pumpkin Patch_ is, has always been, and always will be, a physical show. But there’s a difference between fisticuffs and whatever the hell that hug/ass grab/grind Dirk pulled was, and that difference is in how one has kept Jake awake late on more than one night, lying in bed and feeling like Dirk had plucked something right out of his skin. 

But it’s fine, they’re just bros, and it was for the show anyway. That finale made some all time records for on- and post-air views, and the production team made it pretty damn clear that that was due to Dirk, not Jake’s poetry. 

That just… doesn’t bode well for season twelve, especially considering the fact that Jake hasn’t spoken to Dirk since the finale wrapped. And even if they did talk, what would Jake even say? _Hey, Dirk, bud, please keep your hands to yourself in our fisticuffs-based show!_ No, that’s fucking stupid. 

And besides, it’s not like that even means that Dirk would stop. 

That thought gives Jake some pause, enough so that he reaches for another bottle of wine and has it opened and a quarter of the way downed before he lets himself think it again. It’s… not like Dirk would stop doing something if Jake asked him to. It’s not like Dirk ever stopped doing anything when Jake asked him to, but - no, no, everything that happened with Dirk was something Jake agreed to. 

(“Hey, Jake, c’mere, I have the tent all set up.” Dirk punctuates his sentence with a wink, a completely unnecessary level of coyness for a world inhabited solely by Dirk, Jake, and a bunch of skeleton monsters.

Jake frowns and looks back down at the rock formation puzzle he’s trying to solve. “Just a kip, I think I’ve almost cracked this walnut.”

“Jake,” Dirk repeats. He crouches down in front of Jake and takes his hands, holding them right over the rocks and blocking Jake from seeing the puzzle. “I got the tent all set up, c’mon.”

He lets go of one of Jake’s hands and grabs onto Jake’s thigh instead, sliding his hand up, up, up. Jake glances down at the puzzle, then up at Dirk. There’s a beat.

“C’mon,” Dirk murmurs, and yep, okay, that’s his hand on Jake’s dick. Oh boy. 

“Uh, okie dokie,” Jake stammers. He stands on unsteady legs and follows Dirk into the tent.)

Yep, exactly, Jake agreed to everything that happened. Not in so many words, exactly, Dirk’s interpersonal skills have always been a little rusty and he’s certainly not the type to follow a Planned Parenthood method of how to get consent, but Jake wanted just as much as Dirk did. Why the hell would he have done anything if he hadn’t wanted to?

Jake takes another gulp of wine. Come to think of it, he’s pretty sure this bottle was in one of the large cases of Merlot sent to him by Dirk for his last birthday. There’s some sort of irony in that, but Jake’s not really in the mood to find it. 

In fact, all he’s in the mood for is finishing this bottle of wine, passing out, and making some fucking peace with the past on another day. He makes it through two out of three before his head hits the floor.

*

TT: Jake.  
TT: Jake, where the fuck are you?  
TT: I’ve called like eight times.  
TT: You were supposed to be here thirty minutes ago.  
TT: I’m sending someone to come get you.  
TT: This is fuckin unprofessional, man, what the fuck.  
GT: Oh gosh dirk im awful sorry bud  
GT: It completely slipped out of my mind that we planned this little meetup!  
GT: If youre still there ill can meet you in just a minute  
GT: Or i can just head to the studio!  
TT: You have time, just head on over here.  
TT: Starting late was one of the plans anyway.   
timaeusTestified [TT]ceased pesteringgolgathasTerror [GT]

Jake shuts his phone off with a sigh and drops his face into his hands. He’d been hoping that the amount of partying he’d done last night - and the entire week before, honestly - would keep him knocked out long past the pre-filming of the season premiere lunch he’d agreed to with Dirk ( _you miss him so much, don’t you, then why the hell are you avoiding him_ ), but the whiskey and not-even-gods know what else hadn’t granted him more than a fitful sleep. He’d opened the first message from Dirk without thinking, and from there, he had roughly two seconds to reply before Dirk killed him, so… here he is, now with a full five minutes to arrive at the restaurant Dirk picked before the threat of murder returns. 

Jake swings his legs over the side of the bed and stumbles downstairs to the front door. He’s never been so thankful to his past self for falling asleep in his clothes, as it saves him from having to worry about changing right now. He just smoothes out his bright yellow button-up and adjusts his short shorts, and then he’s out of the door and flying in what he’s pretty sure is the direction of the restaurant. 

Thank fuck for small miracles - a flashing neon sign reading Nemutte Iru Inu appears on the horizon only a few seconds later, and when Jake touches down outside of the front door, he can already see Dirk sitting at a table for two, idly stirring ice cubes around a glass of water with a straw. Jake gives him a wave that all of his exhausted nerves protest and that Dirk doesn’t return, then steps inside. 

“Uh, hey,” Jake says once he’s signed an obligatory autograph for the hostess and sat down. “Sorry again for being late.”

“It’s no big deal,” Dirk says. “Hal told me you probably would be, and he’s usually right, so.”

“Well, alrighty, then,” Jake says. He looks up at the ceiling. It’s a nice wooden pattern adorned with cherry blossoms that looks like it could hide stray bullet holes. Hm. He’ll have to see about having it installed in the shooting room and all of the rooms around it, just to try it out. 

Dirk clears his throat slightly. “You ready for today?” 

Jake shrugs. “Ready as thunder, I suppose, although…” _I’d feel a lot better if I knew you weren’t going to pull whatever sort of shenanigans you decided on last time._

“Good to hear,” Dirk says, like he didn’t hear the shaky, unresolved conjunction at all. “Oh, by the way, I already ordered, the food should be here soon.”

There’s a part of Jake that bristles at that. He’s an adult, he’s been to this restaurant and several others just like it before, he can choose his own food. Since when is that a decision Dirk gets to make for him? It’s not worth arguing about, though, especially when it feels so reminiscent of all of the half-hearted arguments they had right before the break up, so Jake just asks, “What did you order?”

“Sushi,” Dirk says. He doesn’t elaborate. 

God, Jake’s head hurts. He really wishes his god tier powers had come with a hangover cure, or at the very least, a skill that enables you to actually talk to your ex. It’s been three fucking years and they’ve been working together in countless ways the entire time since then; he really should be over this shit. And yet. Some of the thoughts that have been cropping up the past few days won’t go away, and not for the first time, Jake’s overcome with the sensation that Dirk won’t listen to whatever it is he might say. “Sounds ace,” he says anyway.

Dirk doesn’t respond. There’s a faint glow coming from the inside of his shades that means he’s doing something on them, although that could be anything from pestering the PR manager of _Rumble in Da Pumpkin Patch,_ a slightly too uptight man named Harrison, to reading tabloid articles about Jake’s recent benders. There’s enough precedent for both to make either equally likely.

As promised, the sushi arrives just a few minutes of silence later. Dirk and Jake eat their way through half of the plate without speaking (Jake resents himself just a little bit for liking it, of course Dirk would have known what he wants), but then Jake makes the mistake of reaching for the soy sauce at the exact same time as Dirk. Their hands brush, and for reasons he can’t quite articulate, Jake flinches back. 

Dirk stares at him. “You okay, dude?”

Jake nods quickly, ignoring the way doing so exacerbates what’s left of his headache. “Just tired,” he says, even though that doesn’t make sense. He considers pulling out the old ‘raised alone on an island and still not used to human contact’ excuse, but that one hasn’t worked on anyone who’s heard anything about him for the past several years. Everyone pretends not to know about it, but all of the parties and subsequent one night stands have earned Jake quite a reputation.

“Okay,” Dirk says, slowly, and the glow is back. Jake wouldn’t be surprised if Hal is running statistics on how likely he is to be lying. “Anyway. Jane told me that you might be merging Skaianet with Crockercorp?”

The rest of the rather brief lunch passes without incident. Jake’s done more than enough business small talk by now that he can auto-pilot it and devote the rest of his brain space to freaking out about the fact that the clock is ticking closer and closer to showtime. 

Four pm - also known as the scheduled air time for the episode - comes and goes. Jake lets himself imagine that Dirk doesn’t know the time, that being late won’t be okay and that they’ll have to cancel the show. That works wonderfully until 4:37pm, when the conversation fizzles out and Dirk clears his throat. “Alright, we should get goin’. I don’t want a full scale riot on our hands as soon as we get started, although I have a feeling that’s gonna be the case no matter what.”

He stands without waiting for a response, and Jake follows his lead. “Are we aviating on over to the studio?”

Dirk glances out of the window at the perfect afternoon sky. “Yeah, why not,” he says.

The lack of enthusiasm in Dirk’s voice feels pretty on par with the lack of enthusiasm in Jake’s entire body. God, does he even have any rhymes planned? He’d intended to jot some things down last night, but then someone brought out the - and yep, Dirk’s out of the door and in the sky. Fabulous. At least he didn’t feel the need to put his hands all over Jake this time. 

With a sigh and a silent wish for his hangover to clear up soon, Jake steps out of the restaurant and follows Dirk into the air. 

*

The show is a resounding success, and within the first five minutes, it becomes clear that the obligatory afterparty’s going to have the same luck. 

Jake’s still a bit sweaty and grimy from tumbling around on stage as he enters the loud, pulsing crowd. Some Dave Strider wannabe DJ is blaring ironic hits at the other end of the room, and the many TVs around the main room of the producer Harrison’s mansion are already filled with highlight reels and talk show analyses. For a while, Jake just watches the headlines flash by in increasingly more pixelated bastardizations of Comic Sans.

_Ironically Late: Finding the Sweet Spot of Tardiness_

_Why Jake Didn’t Rap - The Truth Behind The New Season, As Told By One Observant Cameraman!_

_Strider’s Rhymes and Their Deep Psychological Implications (Tonight at 9pm featuring Rose Lalonde)_

_Death of a Bromance?! Where The Season Eleven Chemistry Went_

_How “Rumble” is Revitalizing and Reinventing TV - Again_

_Top Ten “DirkJake” Moments of the Past Eleven Seasons_

That last one opens with the much-giffed season finale ass-grab, and Jake tears his eyes away. From the press since it happened to the many, many posters today, he’s more than a little sick of seeing his own halfway to panicked face. God. What’s wrong with him?

“Jake!” a voice suddenly calls, and hey, that probably makes some sort of record for the amount of time taken for him to be recognized at a party. A spotlight and the crowd’s attention fall onto him a second later, and he winces just a bit in the harsh light. 

“Uh, ahoy there, everyone!” Jake says, waving in a way that he prays conveys both _Hello!_ and _Someone pass me a drink right now._ “Thanks for coming out to this little shindig, I hope I get to tangle with everyone, shake a few hands and tails and all that. Uh, carry on!”

There are cheers, the spotlight swings away, and thank fuck, there’s a cold glass of something or other pressed into Jake’s open hand. He downs it almost immediately and wades into the crowd. 

There are lots of things that Jake doesn’t like about fame and the show, but there are also a few things that he loves. This moment is one of them. 

The crowd swallows Jake up, closing around him like the animated mouth of a dragon in Youtube vore porn or like a nice hug. Everyone he bumps shoulders with looks delighted to be dancing next to a God, TV star, and corporate success story, and he’s pretty sure that that’s only partly due to the intoxicating aura of Hope he’s known to give off at parties. His name is on everyone’s lips, people are touching him on all sides, and it feels absolutely nothing like being touched by Dirk. There’s a love, an idolization sparking between every point of momentarily anonymous contact, and it’s fucking _electric._

Of course, that’s probably also due to the alcohol. Whatever drink he was just given is strong, and Jake can feel it already coursing its way through his system as he’s handed another. 

The music changes to something low and fast, and Jake lets himself get pushed around in the pseudo-dancing crowd. It’s a mindless feeling, standing in the center of what feels like everyone on Earth C, liquid courage and a few other mystery substances in his veins, being blinded by the flashing lights and headlines. There’s love and hope coming from all sides, Dirk is nowhere in sight, and all of the weird thoughts that have been plaguing Jake lately have disappeared with him. In short, it’s the perfect night. 

_The Continued Rise of Jake English!_ flashes across a screen. Someone asks for Jake’s autograph, and he scrawls something resembling his name onto the napkin they offer him. The lights alternate between a familiar orange and an even more familiar green, and the room spins just a bit in a way that’s so common there’s almost a comfort to it. Jake laughs - maybe out loud, maybe in his head. He’s not sure why on Earth he was so worked up about the show anymore. 

It went well, it always goes well, for Christ’s sake, and what’s a little discomfort when it means that he gets to have this as often as he wants? Dirk kept all of his contact today in strictly competitive bro territory, and he hasn’t even sought Jake out to gripe at him for not rapping on their rap-based show. He hasn’t sought Jake out at all, in fact, which means the past is squarely in the past, and yeah, this really is the perfect night.

In fact, there’s only one way that it can get better, and Jake finds himself staring that way in the face a moment later when the dancing mass causes him to bump directly into one of the fellows he’s been half-grinding on for a few minutes. Jake’s momentum sends both of them stumbling off of the dance floor and into an unoccupied corner. 

“Oh, uh, I’m right sorry about that, old chap,” he tells the troll that he just slammed into, hoping that his lack of grace doesn’t lend itself to a lack of sex appeal. It takes one look and one thought back to the dance floor for Jake to know that he wants to take this guy home tonight. He’s clearly a Dirk fan - pointed glasses rest precariously low on the bridge of his nose and a loose tank top does little to cover his toned body - but he’s not _sharp,_ he’s about the same height as Jake, and he’s basically perfect. “Are you alright?”

The troll blinks at him once, twice, three times before recognition arrives and he gasps. “Holy shit, you’re Jake English! Are _you_ alright?”

Jake beams. He runs a hand through his hair and rests his other hand against the wall above the troll’s shoulder, leaning in close as he says, “Well, gadzooks, my good sir, now that I’m over here with you, I can’t think of any other way to be. What’s your name?”

The troll’s eyes unmistakably dart to Jake’s lips just for a second, and he flushes, a lovely green tint rising to his cheeks. (Perfect. They match, green on green on green, and who needs orange?) “Uh, I’m Divrit, I’m a huge fan, oh my god, it’s so nice to meet you.”

Jake’s beam gets a little brighter. This guy really is perfect. “It’s quite nice to meet you too, Divvy - can I call you Divvy?” He pauses but doesn’t actually wait for a response before sliding his hand to Divrit’s shoulder, toying with the strap of his tank. “Anyhoo, I was just starting to think about getting on out of this place, maybe moving things to a different kind of dance floor, if you catch my drift.”

Divrit’s nervous, excited smile loses some of its hesitation, and he reaches up and runs a finger along Jake’s mustache. “I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down,” he says, and okay, when did Divrit turn from geeked fan to the guy Jake kind of wants to be in bed with yesterday? “My place or yours?”

Jake leans in closer, closer, until they’re pressed chest to chest. It’s been a long time since he’s hooked up with a guy, and the sensation of solid pecs is strange (and totally doesn’t remind him of Dirk, nope, not at all) in a really good way. “How about mine? I can fly us right on over in a jiffy.”

“Oh, hell yes,” Divrit says, looking just a little geeked again, and Jake grins as he wraps an arm around Divrit’s waist, ushers him to the door, and takes off into the sky. 

“You ever fly before, Divvy?” Jake asks, shivering a little when Divrit tucks his face into the crook of Jake’s shoulder and nips, ever so gently, at Jake’s collarbone. 

“Nope,” Divrit says, “never went home with a god before, either.”

Jake laughs. Divrit’s shades poke his neck for just a moment, and for just a moment, Jake imagines that it’s Dirk under his arm, but the thought’s gone before it fully forms. “Well, if my reputation is true, I think you’re in for a treat.”

Jake’s mansion appears on the horizon, and Divrit hums in what might be approval or awe. Jake flies through an open upstairs window and into one of his many bedrooms, gently dropping Divrit onto the bed and falling down right beside him. “Do you want anything to drink, darling?” Jake asks, because he’s many things and a pseudo-gentleman is most certainly one of them. 

Divrit shakes his head, letting some of his long, dark hair fall into his face. “Just you,” he says, and wow, Jake is really the best at picking one night stands.

Jake rolls onto his side, cups the back of Divrit’s neck in one hand, and pulls him in for a kiss. It’s reciprocated instantly, and Jake melts just a bit as Divrit tugs him closer and bites at Jake’s lower lip with those sharp troll teeth. Normally, Jake prefers to be leading (Dirk always led), but he’s just drunk enough to fall in love with the feeling of this, of chasing Divrit’s lips when he pulls away instead of the other way around.

“Cripes,” Jake gasps. His hands are already chasing after the hem of Divrit’s tank, and he can feel Divrit’s hands getting closer and closer to the button of his shorts, where Jake is somehow already achingly hard. 

“Can I blow you?” Divrit asks, dropping his words against Jake’s jaw with a kiss. 

Is that even a question? Jake does appreciate Divrit asking, though; it’s a courtesy he didn’t always receive from certain other people that he’s Not Thinking About right now. “That would be right splendid of you,” Jake says, “and I’d be delighted to return the favor.” (If he’s not passed out, but… the night will happen as it will. That’s a concern for later.)

“Great,” Divrit says. He has the look on his face that says he can’t believe this is real, a look Jake has yet to tire of seeing, even when it’s a little too familiar paired with those pointy anime shades. But nope, nope, he’s done thinking about Dirk for the night. He’s about to get a blowjob from an insanely hot dude, and that’s really all that matters right now.

Divrit slides down the bed, pulling Jake’s shorts and boxers with him. Jake shivers due to a combination of the sudden cool air and the feeling of Divrit’s breath dancing across his dick. “Ah, _cripes,_ ” Jake breathes. His hips buck up a little, the motion involuntary and useless, and Divrit - gently, gently - places his hands over Jake’s hip bones to hold him still. 

The next few moments will later become a blur in both Jake and Divrit’s minds, but right here, right now, they pass in slow, crystalline clarity. First comes the touching of Divrit’s fingertips to the bed, Jake’s hips under his hands but with no real pressure applied. Then comes the way Jake tilts his head up just a bit to meet Divrit’s eyes. The anime-worthy flash of light across Divrit’s shades that completely obscures said eyes. The violence with which Jake jerks his hips up and out of Divrit’s grasp, the first choice of a vigilant parasympathetic nervous system. A memory. 

(“I’m gonna blow you now,” Dirk says, voice low and dripping with the Texas drawl that really only comes out during early mornings like these. His hands dip down into the back of Jake’s pajama shorts, squeezing his ass once before sliding back up and pushing the shorts down. It feels like his touch is everywhere. 

“Uh-” Jake starts. He’s never done anything like this before, he and Dirk have barely gone past the handjob stage of things and even that still feels like too much sometimes, but….. what’s he going to say? This is something nice and hot that Dirk, his _boyfriend,_ is doing for him. 

Dirk doesn’t acknowledge that Jake’s made a noise at all; maybe he didn’t even hear it. He seems laser-focused on what he’s doing as he hops off of the bed and sinks down to his knees on the carpet, leaning forward and pressing a wet, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of Jake’s thigh. 

“Dirk, I-” Jake tries again. He’s hard, he wants to get off, what the fuck is he doing? Why can’t he just let Dirk do this for him? Something about the situation feels bad, though, like he’s too vulnerable and he’s going to crack if Dirk goes any further. “Dirk, could we - I don’t think I really want to do all of this right now.”

Dirk, thankfully, acknowledges that Jake’s spoken this time. He looks up at Jake with a small, genuine smile, and the sunlight flashes across his shades as his hands come up to rest - not pushing, just resting, holding - on Jake’s hips. “Jake, trust me. You’re going to enjoy this.”

“No, _Dirk_ -”

Jake cuts himself off with a breathy gasp as Dirk leans forward and no, wait, Dirk was supposed to stop, Jake asked him to, you’re supposed to _stop,_ but it feels good, doesn’t it, better than good if Jake ignores the part of him that feels scraped raw, and -}

“Jake? Jake, are you okay?”

Jake feels like he’s been physically thrown back through time when he blinks and sees Divrit hovering above him, features creased with concern. He still has those _fuckingJake English: Crybaby of the Gods_ tabloid feature. “Just get out, I’m fine.”

Divrit hesitates, but something in Jake’s gaze must pull the last straw of hesitation he has, and he turns and leaves the room without another word. Distantly, Jake wonders if he’ll be able to find his way out of the sprawling mansion. It’s hard to care about that right now, though, not when the tears are spilling and his breathing is becoming gradually more synonymous with hyperventilating.

_I don’t think I really want to do all of this right now._

_Trust me. You’re going to enjoy this._

_I don’t think -_

_Trust me._

_I don’t think I really want -_

_You’re going to enjoy this._

_You’re going to enjoy this._

_You’re going to enjoy this._

_No -_

A door slams shut somewhere far away. Divrit’s gone. Solitude isn’t ideal, but it’s familiar, and Jake closes his eyes as he sinks into it like a warm blanket. As quickly as the adrenaline came, it’s gone. His breathing returns to normal, his hiccuping sobs fade, the voices of his memories fall silent. 

It…. that was a panic attack, obviously. Divrit got too close to Dirk, and some mental wires were briefly crossed. Jake doesn’t need Rose or anyone else to tell him that much. But it was just a memory of Dirk giving him a blowjob, that’s not a reason to freak out. Maybe a reason to get sad, if Jake missed Dirk beyond missing having someone that cared in that specific _Dirk_ way, but as it stands, that’s not the case. 

Jake cracks one eye open just long enough to find where his blanket is and pull it over himself. He feels suddenly and completely exhausted, like he hasn’t slept in weeks, and while he knows it’s not possible, it feels like every drop of alcohol has disappeared from his system and left him stone cold sober to deal with _whatever_ this is. Whatever it was that happened back then that Jake can’t seem to make peace with. 

Jake is not a stupid man. Willfully oblivious is probably a better descriptor, but no matter how hard he tries not to think it, a four letter word slips past the mental barrier he’s been building since… well, since Dirk, probably.

That word - that’s not this, though. What happened wasn’t rape. Rape is screaming and fighting and being held down and fucking and it’s not Jake English being unsure about whether or not he’s ten hundred percent ready for his boyfriend to give him a blowjob, a blowjob that made Jake come embarassingly fast, for that matter. Rape doesn’t happen to people like Jake. Rape isn’t done by people like Dirk. 

(“I just want to go to sleep right now, Dirk, I need to be getting more shut-eye if I want to be of any help getting grist.”

“C’mon, it’ll be just a second. Just c’mere.”)

(“You’re gonna like this, I promise, just relax a little.”)

(“I really don’t think this is a good idea, plum, why don’t we just take a break from all these shenanigans?”)

(“Shh, Jake, just let me take care of you.”)

The memories don’t stop coming, like the dam Jake unconsciously put up is crashing down all around him. But it’s not rape, it’s not sexual assault, hell, the ratio of Jake’s orgasms versus Dirk’s in these memories is so ridiculously skewed towards Jake that it’s almost a wonder that Dirk stayed with him for so long. Jake only said “no,” like, twice, and besides, he shut up once Dirk started doing whatever it is he wanted to do. That’s _fine,_ Jake’s _fine,_ right?

Not stupid. Willfully oblivious. The barrier falls, crumbles, disappears.

It’s… maybe not fine. Maybe it was assault. Maybe “no” means no and maybe, just fucking maybe, Dirk had no fucking right to do the shit he did.

Jake squeezes his eyes shut, cringing at the way his dried tears feel on his skin as it wrinkles with his movement. The word “assault” refuses to sit quietly in his brain; it rockets around his thoughts, tearing through synapses and neurons and consuming them like some sort of beast from the jungle. Add “sexual” to the front of it and it feels like it’s stealing ownership of Jake’s body from him too, carrying it away like a thief in the night and leaving him with an empty, dirty shell that he doesn’t know how to pilot. 

His room is bitterly cold. His blanket does nothing to warm him. His torn thoughts race through the past until he falls asleep, just as the sun is beginning to stare judgmentally through the half-drawn curtains. 

*

The next day, Jake arrives at one of Jane’s many Crocker bakery-restaurants on time, dressed, and with only the slightest buzz remaining from the previous night. The time between waking up from a rough two hours of sleep and his arrival here was spent carefully rebuilding the mental dam between the present and the past, and Jake knows that if he just hopes enough, it’ll stay intact. (He hopes, he hopes, he hopes.) 

Jane, of course, was early, and therefore is already seated at a small booth in the back. Jake walks over to her, and he’s silently thankful for how fast the day is moving. Idle time means thinking, and thinking isn't going to lead anywhere good. 

“Good morning, Jane!” Jake says. There’s a fine line between chipper and hysterical; all he can do is hope is doesn’t cross it. “You must’ve gotten here at the rooster’s crow, I don’t think anyone besides us is quite awake yet.”

“Mhm,” Jane hums. She finishes tapping something out on her phone and puts it away before looking up at Jake with bright, cautiously patient eyes. “It’s… nice to see you. How have you been?”

Well, that’s a loaded question. Or at least, it would be if Jake wasn’t the absolute best at building blocks and not thinking about things. He’s not thinking about things. There aren’t even things to think about, actually, he was just overreacting last night. He didn’t fight what happened, he wanted it to happen. Everything is fine. 

“I’ve been pretty good,” Jake says. It feels half-true. He’ll take it. “Busy with the show and that whole kit and caboodle, I’m sure you saw the new premiere yesterday.”

“I missed it, actually, I had a meeting,” Jane says. The patience in her eyes has already began to wane, and Jake sighs to himself. “I recorded it, though, I’m going to watch it tonight,” she adds. 

Jake can recognize an olive branch when he sees one, and he holds onto it tightly. “Neato! Uh. What have you been up to lately? I’m sure being the president of such a big monolith as Crockercorp takes up a lot of your time, but I know you’ve always been a tip top manager of that sort of thing.”

Jane smiles a little at that and wraps her hands around her water glass. “Eh, it’s mostly just the business, really. But I enjoy it.” 

“Good, good,” Jake says. A waiter steps over, and Jake orders a small coffee. He doesn’t want to see the disapproval alcohol would bring to Jane’s face, and there’s a part of him that’s afraid drinking will bring a repeat of the previous night. “Uh, so, that merge you were thinking about?”

They talk shop for the next hour or so, numbers and figures and contracts until Jane is looking tired and Jake’s head is spinning, and they silently decide to take a break.

They sit without speaking for a moment, Jane checking something on her phone and Jake staring at Jane. She looks… the same as she always has. The same red glasses, same dark hair, same warm but perpetually stressed eyes. But she also looks strikingly different, older and distant and with the tell-tale look of concealer under her eyes. That shouldn’t be a surprise: she’s not sixteen anymore. None of them are. 

“Do you ever think about how bonkers it is that we all ended up here like this?” Jake asks. He’s not sure where the question came from, but it falls from his mouth and lands on the table and he can’t put it away now. 

Jane seems surprised by it as well, probably because Jake doesn’t exactly have a reputation for introspection, but her poker face has gotten a lot better over the years. She half-raises one eyebrow, twists the thin silver bracelet she’s wearing on one wrist. “I… I do, sometimes,” she says. “I mean, I’m sure we’re well past the statute of limitations on disbelief or whatnot, but all of this can just feel so crazy.”

“Yeah,” Jake agrees. He looks down at the last few drops of coffee in his mug and closes his eyes for a second. “Who would’ve thought we’d be gods, huh.”

“Who would’ve,” Jane murmurs.

The small restaurant, which has been gradually filling up with people over the past hour, seems to fall silent. The distance between the Jake and Jane that first became friends years upon years ago and the Jake and Jane that now sit here, in the world they created, feels insurmountable. 

And then Jane looks up, and there’s a hint of a smile on her face. “Do you remember back when we all started talking?”

Jake smiles a little too, thinks back through years and years of memories and doesn’t think about… recent history. He says something affirmative, tosses out another moment, and for a while, he and Jane just trade the past, back and forth, from the first time they talked to the game. They talk about Dirk and Roxy and the old Earth, and they skate carefully around every little landmine that their friendship holds with a halting sort of ease.

“Remember when I got you all those movies for your birthday when you turned fifteen?” Jake asks, and he doesn’t mention how he didn’t get her anything the following year. 

“Remember when Roxy had that crush on Dirk?” Jane asks, and she doesn’t mention the tangled mess their friend group became or the habits that had only seemed to exacerbate Roxy’s feelings.

On and on it goes, the restaurant bustling around their conversation and all of its half-truths. It’s going well, frankly, better than any conversation Jake’s had with Jane in a long time. They both relax; Jane’s posture shifts from her stiff Crockercorp CEO stance to something far more relaxed. The coffee keeps Jake’s head clear, and his smile - he swears - keeps the dark patches of the past at bay. Until the conversation edges closer and closer to the end of the game, and Jane does this soft snort and says, “Remember when I went Crockertier? I know I shouldn’t find it funny, but, gosh, some of the things I said were just so crazy!”

Jake remembers. He remembers those “just so crazy” things so well. The restaurant suddenly seems too loud, too small, too bright, and that feeling of panic, the same one as the night before, has snuck into his gut before he realizes.

(Jane stands above him, petting that goddamn cat and looking at him with a perfect balance of desire and disgust. He feels exposed, vulnerable, and it really doesn’t help to have Brain Ghost Dirk next to him, staring at his legs and ass just as much as Jane is. 

Jake knows he’s being a crybaby, he knows he needs to stop, he knows crying won’t do anything to fix his problems. But this situation feels familiar - why does it feel familiar, he’s never felt like he might be raped before, right, what the hell - and it doesn’t feel like he’s ever been able to escape it before. 

Brain Ghost Dirk pats him on the shoulder. His touch lingers just a second too long.)

_But I will not rule alone, Jake. Oh, no. I will need a husband to rule by my side._

_Please, no, Jane -_

_You will always do exactly what I say, when I say it._

_Please, no -_

_C’mon, Jake, bro, just let me do this for you._

_No -_

_You will be obedient, cheerful, mostly silent, and scantily clad._

_Sorry, I just can’t keep my hands off of you when you’re wearing those shorts._

_You're lucky you're so hot._

_You will sire as many children as I ask for._

_Jake, dude, I know you wanna do this. C’mere._

_No, Dirk -_

“Jake? Jake, are you alright? Shucks buster, I’m sorry, that probably wasn’t a good thing to bring up, sorry. Jake?”

When Jake blinks his eyes open, he feels the same way he used to when he fell out of trees back on the island, before Brobot was there to catch him. Everything feels battered and bruised and suddenly exhausted, caffeine and nostalgia abruptly gone. He opens his mouth to speak, assure Jane that he’s fine, Janey, it’s nothing, no need to work your shorts into a bunch, but all that comes out is a sob. 

“Oh, dear, shucks, Jake,” Jane says, and to her credit, she does seem concerned. She glances around the restaurant, as if making sure that no one is staring at them too much - Jake has no idea what she sees; all he can think about is the way Dirk’s words felt, for a moment, interchangeable with those of a possessed Jane that was going to, to, he can’t even think it - before reaching out an arm to pat Jake’s shoulder in her surprisingly-comforting Jane way..

Jake flinches back so hard that he hits his head on the back of the booth. His breath is coming in short, panicked intervals, and the thought of being touched by her or anyone else makes awful, coffee-and-booze-flavored bile rise in the back of his throat. 

Fuck. He can’t do this again, he can’t, he’s not even drunk and last night was just a fluke and nothing fucking happened to make him feel this way. Sure, everything with Jane was pretty bad, but she can laugh at it now, so why can’t he and -

“Okay, hold on, I’m just going to get us out of here, okay?”

There’s a flash of bright, green-ish light, the smell of newly turned dirt, and then Jake finds himself standing in a place he’s been in only once or twice before: Jane’s penthouse. 

The shock of the movement seems to snap him out of his hyperventilating state at the very least, and he breathes in shakily as he looks up at Jane. “Uh. Quite sorry about all that. I think I just, uh. Just - “

Every explanation Jake considers falters on his tongue. There’s nothing wrong, not actually. He just freaked out, because it’s been three years and some part of him still misses Dirk or something like that. It makes sense that he’s freaking out about that now, since he just saw Dirk for the first time in months the other day. Right. This makes sense. It makes sense for completely normal, average, typical ex reasons. It’s fine. 

“Just what?” Jane asks. She steps over to sit down on the couch that Jake just now notices is behind him, her movements careful and slow like she’s dealing with a wild animal. “Here, sit down, and breathe, alright?”

Jake sits down. The breathing is still more of a challenge, but after several long, long moments, Jake pulls in one last, shuddering sob. “Okay,” he says, unsure who he’s trying to reassure. “Okay. Um.” He freaked out, because that was an awful experience. That makes sense. That’s fine, he can deal with that, he just doesn’t know why Dirk had to - 

“I shouldn’t have brought that up, I’m sorry,” Jane says. She’s turned to face Jake, eyes wide behind her glasses and mouth turned just slightly down at the corners. 

“No, it’s really alright, there’s no way in Sam Hill that you would’ve known I would, um, freak out.” _There’s no way you would’ve known that you would remind me of Dirk. There’s no way I would’ve known that you would remind me of Dirk._ “I’m really, really alright, though, so I think I’m just going to go. Head on back to the ole cabana, as they say.” _Just keep going, just get out of here, you can freak out later when no one can see._

“Are you sure?” Jane asks.

Jake nods. Yes, he is, he’s so fucking sure that getting out of here is the only way he can possibly deal this. He just needs to get out of here, think about this for a long time, and then completely forget about it. “Yes, I’m just going to -” He doesn’t bother finishing the sentence before standing and flying out of the thankfully-open window. His words were getting too close to Dirk’s there, a little too much like 

(“I’m just gonna do this real quick, okay?”

“Dirk, how about we -”

“Just real quick, it’s gonna be good.”

“I don’t want -”)

the past, too much like last night. Jake’s mansion blinks into view on the horizon, and without really thinking about what he’s doing, Jake veers away from its looming brick and stone. The idea of going back there right now, where anyone he knows could find him, feels wrong. He wants to be back on his island, back before the game, back before he started suspecting that Dirk fucking Strider had a crush on him, back before he became a washed-up god. Hell, he’d even take going back to before he started actually remembering everything that happened with Dirk. Before certain four letter words and two word phrases entered his vocabulary in terms of his own past. 

Jake’s phone starts to ring. A second later, it’s out of his pocket and hurtling towards the ground far, far below. The air is cold on his legs, and he suddenly wants nothing more than to be wearing actual pants, to be so far from sober that he forgets the word, and to take at least a year-long break from all of this shit.

By the end of the day, he has a room in a cheap, hopefully anonymous motel, and two out of three of the above. 

*

Jake has no idea what time or what day it is the next time he opens his eyes. The room he’s in is dark and unfamiliar, just this side of too warm, like Papa Bear’s porridge in that old story, and his head is spinning much more than usual. He groans and rolls over onto his other side. The bed is much softer than his own (too soft, Mama Bear), and that’s what finally drags his mind into the same room as his body.

The motel room. Twenty boondollars up front and then another two hundred for the clerk to keep quiet about the god in 6B. Booze and sweatpants from a convenience store. No phone, no way to contact anyone else or the other way around, a hangover from the tenth circle of hell that Jake can only blame on himself. For the most part, it’s not an altogether unfamiliar way to wake up. 

The difference between this and the aftermath of any other Friday night, though, is the lack of a body or even a depression on the other side of the bed. The blessed absence of carapacian paparazzi outside. The fact that Jake is wearing pants. The fact that he came here not from a party in his honor, but from a complete meltdown in front of one of his childhood best friends. Not that those two aren’t one and the same sometimes, but… still. There’s a difference between Jake and Dirk arguing over Jake’s habits in the middle of a crowded, hazy dance floor and Jake crying in front of Jane because she brought up something that happened years upon years ago, and that difference lies between the lines of why Jake, on a rare occasion in his life, woke up with pants on. 

Jake sighs, rolls back onto his other side again and winces when his shoulder lands on top of an empty bottle. Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. He uses his shoulder to nudge it to the side slightly so that he can lay down and stare at the clock on the bedside table until its little red numbers swim into view. 

3:42. Could be AM, could be PM, wouldn’t matter either way. The curtains are drawn, and the world is silent. The temples of Jake’s glasses are pressing uncomfortably into the sides of his face. For eighteen minutes, he doesn’t move.

The clock blinks to 4:00. AM, PM, the only time that matters is that past that Jake can’t seem to move on from. 

4:01.

(“Dirk, it’s four in the morning! I understand if you want to have a little early morning rumpus, but we only hit the hay at two,” Jake says, groaning as he opens his eyes just enough to swat at the vague shape of Dirk, looming above him in the thin light of the lantern.

“And?” Dirk says. “I want to get going early, before all those fuckin’ skeletons wake up. We can sleep later.”

“But I want to sleep now,” Jake complains, turning onto his side and away from Dirk. He wants to sleep, and he’s been around Dirk for…. four days straight now, if his count is correct, and he misses being able to just be alone a lot more than he lets himself think about. “You can just go without me if you’re that raring for adventure! I can always come and meet up with you once I’ve gotten a little more shut-eye.”

Dirk sighs, half-dramatic, half-annoyed, half-falling into a tone that Jake recognizes all too well, and that’s bad math but - it’s four am. Jake will cut himself some slack. “Okay, fine, we don’t have to go right now,” Dirk says, dropping himself onto the floor next to Jake and pressing his face into the space between Jake’s neck and shoulder. “Now that we’re awake, though, I can think of some other things that we could do.”

And okay, what the hell, that’s his hand sliding up the back of Jake’s shirt, the contact light but too much right now, too much all of the time. Jake consciously stiffens and hopes Dirk takes the hint. 

He doesn’t. In fact, he takes it, apparently, as an opportunity to push Jake’s shirt up, and that’s when Jake jerks away. He yanks his shirt down as he sits up, knocking Dirk’s hand out of the way with a gentle push of his elbow. “I just want to go back to sleep, Dirk, christ, is that too much to ask of a fellow?”

“You can sleep later,” Dirk insists. There’s a second where his hand hesitates in midair, and Jake feels a strange relief, but then he’s back in a sharp, quick motion, and his hand is on Jake’s jaw and he’s pulling Jake in for a kiss. Jake closes his eyes, breathes out through his nose, and kisses back.)

4:02. 

4:03. Jake brings a hand up to his face and runs his fingers, gently, gently across his lips. Neither they nor his fingertips feel real. He’s so fucking cold. 

Jake… isn’t stupid, and the will of his ignorance has been shaken. He’s overreacting to what he’s admitting to. A regrettable relationship that turned so sour by its end that the taste still makes his face pucker? Okay. A bad memory brought back into the light and setting off some sort of trauma disorder? Reasonable. Coping with immortality with alcohol? He can’t be the only one. 

But this? Running away from everyone on a one-ma, no-fun bender, thinking about his ex when thinking about the time he thought he was going to be raped by his possessed best friend, being unable to shake memories of doing things with Dirk after saying no? Jake is not stupid.

He closes his eyes, blinks them back open to see 4:04, squeezes them shut again. 

_Dirk…._ The next logical word disappears, running down, down, down into a deep, skeleton-filled tomb. Jake tries again. _I.. don’t have to be okay with everything that happened with Dirk._

That’s a thought, yep, he just thought that. Okay. 

“I don’t have to be okay with everything that happened with Dirk.”

And now it’s a sentence, a little headache floating in the stale air of the motel, and it feels, surprisingly, true. He doesn’t have to be okay with it. He said no. It wasn’t a decision he made and now gets to regret for the rest of his immortality. He said no. 

_Which means that Dirk…_

(“You’re gonna like this, I promise, just relax a little.”)

_Which means that it was sexual assault._

There, that’s safe, that’s existed before in this space, that’s not rape, right, it’s not as bad. Right. And that’s what it is. Nothing else. 

(“Dirk, no-”)

Jake opens his mouth again, feeling a bit like the Tin Man with a rusty jaw. If he doesn’t say it, it’s not true, but if he doesn’t say it, he has no reason to feel like this. And if he doesn’t say it, it’s going to eat his brain away from the inside out. “Dirk… raped me."

Maybe it’s the silence of the room, maybe it’s the hangover, maybe it’s the 50% chance of 4:07am, but the words feel so, so loud. But now they’ve been said, and now there’s no escaping the fact that they’re true and that they’ve been true since the first time Jake pushed Dirk’s hand away and it came right back. 

Suddenly, Jake can’t stand to be sitting still. With a kick better suited to someone with less of a hangover, he pushes the thin blankets off of himself and rolls out of bed.

Jake stumbles into the bathroom, catching his hands against the edge of the sink and staring at himself in the mirror. He feels like every rough, 5 o’clock-shadowed, deadly protagonist, if he ignores the fact that guys like that don’t get fucking raped by their boyfriends. There’s a flash of anger, the scene almost parallels the movies enough for Jake to raise a hand and punch through his own reflection, but Jake quickly realizes that the anger isn’t directed at himself.

It’s, and probably rightfully so, right, directed at Dirk. Dirk, who heard “no” and didn’t fucking stop. Dirk, who still feels like he has the right to touch Jake. Dirk, who never once asked if Jake was okay with any of the things he did.

(“C’mon, Jake, just let me try this.”)

The room is too hot, and it’s only worse in the tiny bathroom. Jake can’t stand the thought of taking his clothes off, though, because he knows that that’ll only mean inviting more memories of more ignored refusals, more eventual acquiescence that wasn’t consent, he knows it wasn’t, and Dirk should’ve known too. 

(“I’m really not sure if we should-”)

Jake meets his own eyes in the mirror and sees something panicked, unfamiliar, that he’s only seen in footage of the _Rumble in da Pumpkin Patch_ season eleven finale. He hates it. It’s not him, and he can’t bear to look at it even for the time it takes for him to back against the bathroom door and slide down, down, down onto the floor and out of sight of the mirror. He wraps his arms around his knees, pulls them to his chest, and drops his head down with a sound he’s not sure whether to call a sob or a sigh. 

He’s doing this, then. This is how today is going. He’s going to sit here and he’s going to think about the past until he has the language to describe it, and he’s not going to get drunk again because there’s no liquor left in the room and there’s no way in hell that he’s leaving the motel. He’s going to sit here. And he’s going to let himself think every thought he’s been trying not to think for the past three years. 

Jake lifts his head and leans it back against the flimsy wooden door. The ceiling above is a hideous popcorn with two visible spiders in the corners. Jake… kind of feels like the ceiling and the door all at once, kind of feels like this shitty, falling-apart, used motel bathroom, and there it is again, that anger at Dirk. 

Dirk, Jake is willing to bet, is doing just fine right now. If it’s 4am, he’s probably either asleep or out having great sex with some bear. If it’s 4pm, he’s probably working on his robots and creating amazing things, or maybe spending time with Roxy or Dave. Maybe he’s having coffee with Jane and managing to talk about the game without flipping his shit. No matter what time it is, Jake can confidently say that Dirk isn’t sitting on the floor of a motel bathroom thinking about the fumbling sex they had three years ago. 

Is that even the right way to refer to it? Calling it the “sex they had” implies consent, doesn’t it, it implies that both involved parties were enthusiastic, weren’t lying on the bed like a limp puppet - ha -, were enjoying themselves and not just feeling like they were trying to read from a script they’d never been given. 

Yeah, no, those definitely aren’t the right words for it, but then again, it seems even more unlikely that Dirk is sitting on the floor of a motel bathroom thinking about the way he raped Jake three years ago. 

Jake can’t help the way he tenses up at the word, momentarily digging his fingernails into his knees through the sweatpants, gritting his teeth and trying to force himself to calm down, calm down, calm down, he can handle this. He can deal with this. He can sit here all day, night, millenia, and think about it until he feels human again. 

There are places on Earth C for situations like this, crisis centers and all that. If Jake had his phone and if he hadn’t been so stupid as to not realize that Dirk continuing to do things after he said no - it feels so painfully obvious, why did Jake ever let him - for three years, he might look one up. Situationally, though, it seems that the only place he can go is here.

Here, now. One of the spiders on the ceiling starts walking towards the other. Jake breathes in, breathes out. 

It wasn’t… Dirk wasn’t _intentional_ in his (can’t say the word, can’t say the word) actions. At least, not any more intentional than he needed to be, clearly he was intentional in what he did but not in the way it happened. Right?

The world is made of false assumptions and their innate insecurity, but that much feels true. Dirk’s morals have a reputation for their questionable status, of course, always have, not to mention those of his splinters. Jake doesn’t know much about Dave’s Bro, but he knows enough to make dots appear that connect the space between Dirk and the things he’s done. Of course, beta Dirk’s Lil Cal wasn’t empty, Lord English was with him for his entire life or some shit, but… how much of Cal’s influence was just tugging on pre-existing potential?

But no, no, Jake is sure that even with all of Dirk’s overthinking and overanalysis of their relationship, the thought that what he was doing wasn’t okay never crossed his mind in any way significant enough for him to stop. Dirk is many things, but he’s not a bad person, not really. He’s just a little fucked up, right, anyone who grew up the way he did would be (see: Jake English). He’s not a bad person; Jake knows he actively tries to be good. He just assumed that Jake was on the same page as him, and Jake never pushed him to talk about it, and wait, isn’t this Jake’s fault, then?

Jake groans, letting go of his knees and letting his legs sprawl out onto the floor. Maybe he’s just being overdramatic. He never put up a _fight,_ never any physical defense beyond their usual tussles, and Dirk never physically forced him into anything. If Dirk, god of heart and overthinking, never thought of what happened as rape, can Jake honestly say it was?

Christ on a cracker, Jake wishes he had his phone. He still can’t quite fathom talking to anyone right now, but he can’t help but think this might be easier if he could look things up on the Internet, watch a movie, find some way to process this instead of running on this mental hamster wheel. 

Maybe he’s being overdramatic, maybe he’s throwing darts and praying he finds a new excuse for his behavior. But… maybe he’s not. He said no, and Dirk kept going, and that’s, undeniably, inescapably, rape. 

Breathe in, breathe out. Jake pushes a wave of memories firmly back into his subconscious. He’s not sure if he has the right to be mad, really, if Dirk quite realized what he was doing, but ... he's _mad._

Jake could be anyone right now. He could be living a wonderful godhood with a wonderful partner and not feel the need to drink himself into oblivion every other night and every other day. He could actually be in charge of his company instead of delegating, delegating, delegating. He could be anywhere but here, but no - Dirk had to do what he did, and here’s the aftermath. It smells like asbestos and sour whiskey breath and a cheap, acrid lemon cleaner, and it feels like absolute shit. Hey, surprise, surprise, Jake, being the victim of rape feels like absolute shit. Who would’ve guessed?

The silence of the motel room grows oppressive as it begins to stretch across minutes and then what feels like hours. The spiders on the ceiling shift from corner to corner. Jake’s body aches from the cold linoleum, but he doesn’t move until there’s a timid knock on the door to his room.

“Uh, hello?” he calls. His voice is like a backroad in an underfunded district, rough and easily cracked, the type of road that people pop tires on, and it sounds unfamiliar to his ears with the weight of today’s revelations hiding just beneath its surface. 

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but will you be staying another night?” someone calls from the other side of the door. Their voice is one Jake’s heard many times before, the voice of a fan praying desperately that their idol isn’t as much of an asshole as they’ve heard. Jake hates that he’s going to have to let them down. 

He clears his throat, hoping to smooth it out just a bit, and makes a decision he really made hours ago. He’s not going to show up to the filming of the next episode of _Rumble_ in two days, he’s not sure if he’s ever going to show up to the filming of _Rumble_ again, but that much can be saved for later. “Oh, um, yes! I’ll be staying in this little abode for three sleeps, actually, if that’s fine and dandy with you.”

As Jake speaks, he lifts his aching body from the ground one step at a time, stacking his vertebrates on top of each other one by one by one by one by one and praying they don’t shatter. He’s fine. He’s been fine for this long, he’ll keep being fine. “That’ll still be $20 a pop?”

“Yes, sir!” the voice answers. 

Jake nods to himself, fumbles around for his wallet until he realizes its still in the pocket of his sweatpants, and pulls out 1000 boondollars. Eh, should be close enough, or should keep the staff quiet for another day at least. He opens the door just enough to pass the money through, then closes it, turns the lock, and flops back onto the bed. His shoulder lands on that fucking bottle again. 

*

Two nights pass. The scheduled second episode of _Rumble in da Pumpkin Patch_ comes and most likely goes. Jake doesn’t turn on the TV. In fact, Jake doesn’t do much of anything other than sit in bed or on the floor when sheets feel too familiar and think. He thinks about Dirk and the past, thinks about himself and the present, thinks about the future. That last one feels like nothing but a great big question mark. What is he going to do?

Jake can’t stay here forever. It’s technically possible, of course, he has enough money to buy the motel itself if he really wanted, but it’s a miracle he hasn’t been found yet. All of his friends are gods, and now that he’s missed the show, at least Dirk will be out looking for him. He has one night still paid for, and then he’ll have to move on, even if it’s just to the next motel.

That can’t be what he does, though, right? 

Jake sighs, stares up at the ceiling, frowns at a vermiculite constellation that he noticed looks like a snake last night and now can’t unsee. No, he can’t do that. He misses his friends, distantly, in the way you miss people that probably don’t miss you and will probably miss you less if they know why you disappeared in the first place - if you ever even let them find out why that is, anyway, because Jake has a feeling that he’s not going to walk up to everyone and just announce, “Hey, turns out that I’ve been so uncomfortable about everything with Dirk for so long because he raped me! Isn’t that just so gosh-diddly-darned crazy? And doesn’t it sound so plausible that I didn’t realize until now?” 

Still, though. He misses them. And he misses his mansion, stupid as it sounds, he misses having actual space to exist in, he misses not thinking about Dirk every time he closes his eyes or sees his own skin, but worms don’t fit back into their cans, or something like that. 

He doesn’t miss Dirk. Or the show. He _really_ doesn’t miss the show, and hey, maybe that’s a place to start figuring out his next move.

Feeling a little too much like he did before the break up,

(“No, I can’t hang out today, Dirk, no, nothing’s wrong, I’m just busy.”)

Jake reaches over to the nightstand, grabs the little motel notepad, almost knocking a lamp over in the process, and starts drafting a letter of resignation from _Rumble in da Pumpkin Patch._ God, he hopes Dirk will listen to it.  
He’s two paragraphs in, having wrapped up a half-apology and beginning to write out the fact that he’s permanently done in as many different ways as possible, when there’s a knock at the door. 

Jake checks the clock. It’s only 1:00pm, and the Do Not Disturb sign on his door means that no one from the motel should be here. The lack of people crowding through the windows means that he hasn’t been found by the public. So unless carapacian solicitors have started bringing their door to door shticks to tiny, shady motels, it’s one of Jake’s friends. Or Dirk, Jake supposes, because he really doesn’t belong to that category anymore. 

“Fiddlesticks,” Jake mutters. His first instinct is to get up, charge over to the door and maybe pretend that no, he’s not Jake English! He’s never heard that name in his life! He’s… Enrique Johnson, complete with an awful accent and an overgrown mustache. Thankfully, he doesn’t listen to his first instinct. Instead, Jake just goes completely still. Maybe if he’s quiet enough, whoever it is will assume he’s out or that he was never here at all.

The knock comes again, louder, charged with a certain impatience and accompanied by a lack of speech that almost definitely means Dirk Strider. Jake’s pulse picks up. Realizations and introspection are all fine and good until you have to face your ex-abuser-who-wasn’t-really-aware-that-he-was-abusing-you-at-all, especially when you’ve kinda sorta been planning on never seeing him again.

Again, a knock. Jake has never read Poe, but he’s pretty sure he’s watched enough adaptations to understand that this is what “The Raven” felt like. Slowly, like approaching a grazing beast on the island or sneaking into the tent without waking Dirk back on LOTAK, Jake gets out of bed and steps over to look through the peephole.

There’s probably something symbolic in the way the lens distorts Dirk until all Jake can really see is his shades, but whatever irony is there is lost to the sense of overwhelming panic that Jake feels. They’re broken up, Dirk’s not going to do anything, it’s been three years and he hasn’t done anything, but he’s going to ask why Jake’s run away and lying has never been Jake’s strong suit. 

So Jake runs. Stealth is traded for speed, for “how fast can one god outrun another,” and Jake is across the room and wriggling through the window before he thinks about it too much.

The handle shakes, and Dirk calls, “Jake? What the fuck are you doing? I know you’re in there, man.”

Jake, actually, is not in there. He’s out of the window and flying back towards - well, he’s not sure yet, but away - somewhere, and he’s not thinking about how the singular note of concern of Dirk’s voice feels like a tether pulling him back. 

It’s unexpectedly cold outside (thank Jake for sweatpants), and the clear sky provides a perfect backdrop for Jake’s surprised face when the first camera shutter clicks from the ground. Frig. Paparazzi, they probably followed Dirk and have now spotted Jake in all of his stubble-y, work-skipping glory. Another shutter clicks, a bulb flashes, and Jake puts all of his effort into flying as far as he can as fast as he can. 

He doesn’t consciously realize where he’s going until he sees the tall glass building that houses both Crockercorp’s central office and Jane Crocker, but its soft, eco-friendly lights are the closest thing that he can think of to home. Jane won’t rat him out, right? With Roxy, he might be running the risk of her telling Dirk, and he loves the rest of his family, but he doesn’t think he’d be up to seeing them right now, so… here he is. 

Fight or flight sinks down in Jake’s gut, back to the home of all of the things he doesn’t think about when he doesn’t absolutely have to. His breath, which he didn’t even realize had sped up, slows. For a minute, he just - floats there, outside of one of Jane’s curtained window and trying to decide the best way to explain the situation. Jane last saw him about three days ago, after he freaked out about the past and then disappeared, and she’s going to have more questions than Jake will be able to answer without explaining why he felt the need to leave his life behind, just for a little bit, of course. Maybe he’ll just leave. Maybe he should just leave. There are other motels, farther away, in places like Antarctica and Australia and hey, Jake loves adventure, right?

Jake resolutely shoves down an echo of that same phrase in Dirk’s voice, in a completely different tone in a completely different world. He knows that running isn’t going to work for as long as he “needs” it to, especially when considering the fact that that need can always be extended with only the slightest justification. Nope, he’s going to go… talk to Jane. Not tell her, necessarily, that feels like a bit much (what if he’s just overreacting, what if this same sort of thing happens to everyone, what if he’s remembering wrong), but he can… talk. Tell her he wants to quit the show and wants business advice. Yeah. That’ll work. And then she’ll be _there_ in a way no one has been in a long time. Yeah. This is a good plan. 

Jake takes a deep breath, adjusts the collar of his shirt, and knocks on the window. There’s a pause just long enough for him to start listing all of the places Jane could be that aren’t here, but then the curtain is yanked to the side. Jane’s face, wide and confused but falling to a kind of relieved resignation when she sees Jake, appears in its place. 

Jake waves and gives her what he hopes is a winning smile. She purses her lips, looks at something on the wall to her left, and slides the window open just a couple of inches. Jake grabs onto the sliver of space like an olive branch. “Can I come in?”

Jane looks at him, hovering there, and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Okay,” she says, “but you’re going to have to explain what all’s going on.” 

Okay, yeah, that’s not great, but when Jane pulls the window the rest of the way open, Jake floats in without protest. He comes to a stop on the shining hardwood floors of Jane’s kitchen. It smells like baked goods, and it would be cozy if it wasn’t for the way Jane’s black flats are tapping on the floor impatiently. “So. Where have you been?” she asks. “We’ve all been worried about you.”

“I was having a bit of a kip in a hotel,” Jake says, scratching the back of his neck and hoping against hope that he’ll be able to get out of this conversation without saying anything. He has no idea how Jane would react if he told her about what Dirk did, but he can’t really imagine anything that he’d find pleasant. She’d probably be on Dirk’s side, honestly, and say that Jake’s just overreacting. “Just needed a break from the whole kit and caboodle of godhood, I’m sure you get it!”

Jane pulls out a chair at the kitchen table and sits down, gesturing for Jake to do the same. Her movements and expression are sharp, a little too close to Strilonde territory, but Jake knows her well enough at this point to see the genuine concern in her eyes. It helps him breathe, just a bit, as he sits down across from her. 

“I get that,” Jane says. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re here and not at your house, or why you ran away from Dirk when he went to find you.”

Wonderful. Of course she already knows about that. “Uh-” Jake says, and he had a plan for this, didn’t he? “Well, you see, Janey, I’ve just been… thinking.”

“Dangerous idea,” she says wryly. It’s a little too true to be funny. Christ, Jake wishes he had a drink right now. 

“Well, yes, I suppose it could be, especially in my ol’ noggin, haha,” Jake says with one of his top ten most-forced laughs of all time. “But I was thinking that, uh, it might be time for me to move on from the whole television shtick, but I mean, Dirk is.. hard to talk to about things he might not be absolutely jazzed about.”

Jane snorts softly at that, and her posture softens. “Yeah, I know what you mean there.”

Jake laughs again, awkwardly and a little too loudly in the quiet kitchen. God, he hopes Jane accepts that, he doesn’t think he’d even be able to think about the things he’s _not thinking about_ right now, let alone talk about them. Things were different in the motel, like they weren’t as real, like he was just in a movie for a few days, but now he’s here, back in the real world with real people and the real fact that he’s never going to be the person he was before all of this again. “So, yeah, that’s just kind of the whole situation,” Jake says. “I know I need to let him know eventually, but I haven’t quite figured out the best way to do it, and having some space was important.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Jane says. She looks down at the table, then back up at Jake. She looks suddenly like _Jane,_ like the girl that Jake made friends with so long ago, and he wonders, not for the first time, why he couldn’t have fallen for her instead. She wouldn’t have - she wouldn’t have raped him, not when she was herself, anyway. She could be his wife by now, they could be married, they could be talking about the future and they could be happy without wrestling each other on live TV, but nope, he just had to fall for Dirk, if that’s even the right word for the emotions Jake felt back then. 

Jake sighs. Jane watches him for a long moment. The room is quiet. 

Then, Jane speaks. “Well, I guess if you need a place to crash until you figure out how to tell him, you could stay here,” she says. “It’s not really inconspicuous or anything, but I’m not sure how much Dirk would suspect that you would be here, you know?”

Relief - that’s one Jake hasn’t felt all day, or in a while, really - washes over Jake like a tidal wave. He can stay here. And Jane’s not going to ask any more questions. Hallelujah. “I’d love that, Janey,” he says genuinely. “Thank you.”

She half-smiles in that possibly-regretting-her-decisions way. “No problem, Jake.” 

*

That night is the first night Jake’s actually been planning on sleeping in a while. The spare room Jane showed him to a few hours ago is cool and practically empty; that combined with the lack of alcohol makes thinking a little easier than Jake prefers. He’s here, he’s back in the world, and he’s going to have to see Dirk eventually. And he’s going to have to spend the rest of his (eternal) life with the knowledge that Dirk, who he’s going to have to see, eventually, raped him. And that sucks, but at least, at least Jane didn’t press him to tell her. 

“Although I suppose that might have been a bit of a relief,” Jake mutters to himself. He turns over onto his back, the phrase rotisserie shithead coming to mind, and sighs. “Wouldn’t have all this just rattling in the old rooster cage and telling me I’m making this hullabaloo up every five seconds.”

Suddenly, the temporary phone that Jane gave him buzzes, which is strange, because Jane is, as far as Jake knows, the only one who knows about it. Jake half sits-up, grabs it from the nightstand, and squints at the notification through his glasses-free eyes.

gutsyGumshoe [GG]began pestering golgothasTerror [GT]

GG: Hi, Jake!  
GG: Not to sound like Rose or Dirk here, but I’m guessing that you’re still awake.  
GG: So, will you tell me what you’re really running away from here?  
GG: I’m not an idiot.  
GG: And I’d like to know if I’m sheltering you from murder charges or something before I continue doing it.  


Jake watches the messages appear with a mounting mixture of trepidation and resignation. She’s right, she’s not an idiot, and Jake should never have assumed that treating her like one would work. He takes a deep breath and goes to shut the phone off.

GG: That phone has read receipts on, you know.  
GG: I know that you’re seeing these.  


Fuck.

GT: Well golly jane of course i know youre not an idiot!  
GT: And in fact you know i am quite a gentleman and would never take it upon myself to lie to a lady.  
GG: Jake, please.  
GG: I’d really like to think that I’m more approachable than Dirk.  
GG: Whatever’s going on, I’m sure it’s not that big of a deal.  
GT: Hm.  
GT: You might be sure on that but to be right honest with you i have no idea if im making molehills out of mountains or vice versa here!  
GT: As i said earlier ive been thinking a lot about the past and whatnot.  
GT: And as im sure you know all of that hullabaloo with dirk is a big part of the past!!   
GG: Jake?  
GT: Hm?  
GG: I want to help you, and I want to know what’s going on, but not if it’s going to be more Dirk drama.  
GT: Oh yes of course i wouldnt want to dump all that on you especially after that little birthday fiasco back in the game!!  
GT: Really i wouldnt want to dump anything on you more than i already have.  
GT: Goodnight jane!  


Jake hits the button to exit the chat, but the screen flashes a familiar shade of red and doesn’t let him leave.

GG: Wait, Jake, please, don’t run away again.  
GG: I… If you need to talk about Dirk, I guess I can listen.  
GG: Or I can get Rose or Dave or someone who might understand him a bit better to listen.  
GG: But we’re all worried about you, you know, and we want to help.  
GG: I want to help.”  
GT: Gosh well thank you jane!!  
GT: That really does mean a lot  
GT: I just...  
GT: I dont know if all these thoughts ive been having are really the kind that you tell other people!  
GT: Hell knows ive never been all that good at knowing what you tell other people anyway, but nevermind all that.  
GT: I guess what im trying to say is that ive come to some realizations recently and i dont quite know if ive actually realized things or if im just overreacting to some things im not absolutely yippety split about.  
GT: Um.  
GT: Yep thats pretty much it!  
GG: Mm.  
GG: I wish I could say I know what on Earth you mean, Jake, but I really have no idea.  
GG: What did you realize?  
GT: Haha well thats the kicker isnt it!!!  
GT: Haha!!!!  
GG: Jake, are you okay?  
GT: Yes im absolutely dandy! What else would i even be?  
GT: I mean its not like doing the whole horizontal tango with your boyfriend that you barely ever called a boyfriend even when you didnt want to would ever make you upset years after the fact, right?  
GG: Wait, wait, wait.  
GG: What do you mean, “didn’t want to?”  
GT: Well you know dirk!  
GT: Once he has it in that brain of his that somethings going to happen it happens even if the other person involved isnt really on the same particular page.  
GT: I know thats not really a big deal though, im sure that sort of thing happens to lots of teens as theyre growing up! And golly its not as if dirk and i ever had a good example of how to do much of anything.  
GG: Jake, that’s...not normal.  
GG: At least, I don’t think it is, it’s not like being the heiress to Crockercorp ever gave me a normal childhood.  
GG: But I’m quite sure that if you don’t want to do things with somebody, things aren’t supposed to happen.  
GG: Unless, I suppose, you never said that you didn’t want them to happen, but even then, I’m not sure which person’s supposed to stop things.  
GG: Hm.  
GT: Yeah, I really don’t think that’s normal, Jake. It kind of sounds like Dirk raped you.  
GG: Oh my god.  
GT: Well when you put it like that thats certainly what it sounds like huh.  
GT: I guess you and ive reached the same conundrum then.  
GT: What with how long its been since um. Since that happened, so whos supposed to vouch for my memory, right??  
GT: But i uh. I think thats what happened.  
GT: I certainly told the ol fellow no a fair few times!!!!  
GT: Never seemed to work!!!  
GT: So i mean half the time i just didnt say anything but you make an awfully good point about whether thats his fault then.  
GT: Golly this is all so complicated huh!!  
GT:...  
GG: Oh, goodness, Jake, are you crying?  
GG: I can hear you from down the hall. Hold on, I’m coming down there.  


gutsyGumshoe [GG] ceased pestering golgothasTerror [GT]

Jake stares down at the phone for an achingly long moment before Jane’s words actually register, and it takes another beat for him to realize that he is, indeed, sobbing, all sloppy snot and choked, frantic breaths, hunched in on himself, and oh god, oh god, he told Jane, and now she’s going to judge him and she’s going to tell Dirk and he’s just making all this shit up anyway and -

The door to the bedroom opens. Jane appears in the doorway, her entire face changed by her lack of makeup and the dim light of the hallway, dressed in a long red Crockercorp nightgown. She’s perched on the edge of the bed next to Jake in less than a second, and her voice is gentle, unsure when she asks, “Can I hug you?”

Somehow, the simple act of being asked manages to both head off the incoming memory 

(Dirk, suddenly on the bed, Dirk, appearing from the dark, Dirk, not bothering to ask before running his hand over Jake’s thigh) 

and send Jake into a new fit of tears. Shit. Being asked for consent shouldn’t be a new feeling, and yet it is. Somewhere in his tears Jake manages to choke out something like “yes,” but even then, Jane waits for Jake to lean in before wrapping her arms around him and holding him tightly. “Shh, shh,” she says, rubbing his back, and fuck if he doesn’t underrate human contact sometimes. “It’s alright, Jake, it’s alright. You’re safe.”

Jake melts into the hug, into the emotions he hadn’t even realized he was still keeping bottled - ha - up until now, and cries until his weeping shifts into dry, shuddering breaths, and nothing else. Jane holds him close the whole time. She doesn’t say a word about the way Jake’s snot has to be getting all over her nightgown or how late it is or how Jake should’ve worked all this out three years ago. She just holds him. She holds him until those dry, shuddering breaths come, and then she pulls away, eases Jake down so he’s tucked into bed once more. 

“Just try and get some sleep, it’ll help,” she says. LIke sleep will fix this, but… it’s the thought that counts. “If you’re okay with it, I’ll talk to Rose in the morning, but… just sleep, okay?” She runs a hand over Jake’s forehead, brushing the hair back, touch light and gentle and like the way Jake imagines a mom must feel, like the opposite of Dirk, and he closes his eyes.

Jake’s asleep before he can say thank you, or anything else, really, but he likes to think that Jane knows what he means. 

*

TT: Hi, Jake.  
TT: Are you sure you don’t want to do this in person? I think that would help me form a more accurate assessment.  
GT: Im sure haha, it all just feels like a bit much when i throw it out into the world like that.  
GT: Um. How much did jane tell you?  
GT: After i talked with her the other night she said she was going to talk to you if that was alright by me and obviously that happened because we all planned this chat but i dont know how much she managed to get across.  
GT: About all of that business with dirk i mean of course  
TT: She told me… enough.  
TT: Are you comfortable talking about it? Talk therapy rarely works if you feel uncomfortable when you’re talking about the trauma, and I’d prefer not to waste both of our time today.  
TT: We can always discuss short-term goals for reaching a point at which you feel comfortable talking about the trauma and continue on from there.  
GT: Uh the latter seems pretty dandy right now i think!  
GT: No offense meant now rose but ive really only gotten to chat with you a few times. Not to mention this is all still pretty fresh in my noggin as it were.  
TT: I understand.  
TT: Alright, so in terms of short term goals, I think a good starting point could be regular therapy, either with me or someone else. I know many therapists of varying species, and I feel confident in my ability to find someone that would be a helpful match for you.  
TT: Is there anything else that you would like to achieve in the short-term, though?  
GT: Well i mean i guess id like to get out of janeys hair, ive been staying with her for about a week now and i feel a bit like im imposing on her bungalow here.  
TT: Okay, I think that’s a reasonable goal.  
TT: Why are you at Jane’s instead of your own house? Is there something currently preventing you from leaving her house?  
GT: If i go back to my house or even back out to some motel im just making it more likely that dirk will find me.  
GT: Theres something about god powers that he can sort of track but not when im this close to jane, so.  
GT: I almost saw him when he showed up outside of my motel room last week but of course i left in quite a jiffy when i realized who he was! Im sure nothing bad will happen if i talk to him but i also cant imagine anything good happening in that scenario, i guess.  
TT: I see.  
TT: Do you think that he would respect your boundaries if you were to ask him not to contact you? Did you ask to be left alone before leaving last week?   
GT: Dirk doesnt exactly have a spitting track record for boundary respect haha.  
GT: But um. No, i didnt talk to anyone before i left.  
GT: I had been talking to janey and reminiscing on the good ol days back in the game as im sure youve done from time to time and i was just so upset after the conversation that i just left!  
TT: May I ask what aspect of that conversation made you upset? You seem comfortable with the reminiscing part of it; did something change?  
GT: Well uh how do i explain this. Back in the game jane was briefly under the influence of the batterwitch!!! It was a rip roaring adventure for everyone involved let me tell you.  
GT: The batterwitch had jane put me in prison and threaten to make me give her babies which i was not a fan of.  
GT: When jane brought that one back to the table the other day it...  
GT: Well it made me think of dirk and i didnt want to think about why and i just went right on and absconded out of there!  
GT: I dropped my phone when i left and so i didnt speak to anyone until i got to janes and asked her if i could bunk at her house for a bit.  
GT: I suppose i could ask dirk to give me some space but i dont really think hed listen what with the show and all.  
TT: What do you mean by that?  
TT: I must admit that I do follow _Rumble in da Pumpkin Patch_ from time to time, even if only to study my fatherson’s psyche.  
TT: I missed the most recent episode, but I’m going to step out onto a limb and assume that you did not arrive to film it.  
GT: You assume correctly!!  
GT: Obviously ive been doing a good bit of spinning my thought wheels and ive been thinking that maybe i dont want to do the show anymore, but i cant imagine telling dirk that.  
TT: Why?  
TT: And I mean that in regards to both the reason for your resignation from the show and your perceived inability to inform Dirk of said resignation.  
GT: Well the show is just getting a bit tiring, what with the same old thing all the time and having to be around dirk all the time seems less appealing the more that i think about all of the hootenanny ive been thinking about.  
GT: And im sure you saw the end of last season and um. Well im sure you can understand how that slots right into place with all of this other.. stuff.  
GT: Oh and not to mention the afterparties!!  
GT: I love them of course but they can be tricky beasts sometimes!  
GT: I guess the same goes for dirk honestly, hes...  
GT: Hes the kind of chap that sets his mind to something and then wont take no for an answer which is by all intents an admirable trait!  
GT: But if i tell him that i want to quit the show im sure hell just brush me off.  
TT: I understand.  
TT: Remind me to come back to your comment about the afterparties in a moment.  
TT: From what I know of Dirk and his side of the family, I understand what you mean. Striders, in my experience, tend to be a particular brand of stubborn.  
TT: However, I don’t think that is to say that an attempt at communication would go completely ignored. I’m sure that this situation is frustrating for him both as a coworker and a childhood friend, and it might set him at enough ease to leave you alone if you explain that you would like to take a hiatus of undetermined length from the show.  
TT: That could offer you time to process and create a long term plan for dealing with Dirk.   
TT: This may be slightly unorthodox, but I can facilitate some of that communication if required, and tell Dirk that it’s best for him to take some space from the situation for a while. I’d only do that with your consent, though.  
TT: Do you know when the next episode is scheduled to be filmed?  
GT: I think its sometime this weekend but im not sure, once we get two episodes into the season the schedule tends to turn all “ironic” and confusing.  
TT: Do you think it would be a reasonable goal to let Dirk know before then that you need to take a break from the show?  
TT: As I said, I think that even opening a narrow line of communication will take both of you out of this undefined limbo you seem to be in currently, and it will, in a sense, “buy” you some time with which to process your relationship with Dirk and what you want the future to look like.  
GT: Yes i think i could at least try that!  
TT: Good.  
TT: I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed by this conversation, so I will let you go soon, but there is one more area I’d like to address first.  
TT: Earlier, you mentioned that parties can be “tricky beasts;” what did you mean by that?  
GT: Well im sure since you follow Rumble a bit you know that i can be quite taken with the bottle sometimes as they say.   
GT: Thats another goal id like to make though i think.  
GT: To stop all that, i mean. I know that booze isnt good of course, i watched everything with roxy, and i dont want to just be the drunk god all the time you know??  
GT: Its just been an easy way to shut up this trapper keeper ive got on my shoulders.   
TT: I think that’s a very good goal, Jake.  
TT: Alright, well, if you need help with talking to Dirk, please let me know.  
TT: Considering his role in your trauma, you have no obligation to speak to him and I am willing to deal with him for you. I do think that interacting with him will help in this situation, but again, you have no obligation.  
TT: I’ll let you go now, but let’s agree to speak again once you’ve spoken with Dirk. We can start making plans to achieve those other goals. Does that sound alright?  
GT: Sounds swimming!  
GT: Thank you rose.  
TT: You’re welcome, Jake.  
golgothasTerror [GT]ceased pesteringtentacleTherapist [TT]

*

Six - well, it kind of feels like a thousand and none at all at the same time, but six in the ways that matter - months later, Jake finds himself standing in the shadow of a large statue of a sea beast. 

Well, sea beast is a… generous term, it’s a bit more like a vaguely phallic blob (Rose will love hearing about this later), but it’s getting there, according to the instructor of the sculpting class. It’s better than some of Jake’s first attempts, at least. 

Jake’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He steps away from the statue slightly and checks it, frowning a little when he sees dust transferring from his fingertips to the screen. Oh, well.

There’s a message from Rose to confirm their meeting later tonight, several messages from Jane about business things, and an invitation to go stargazing over the weekend with Jade. Jake taps out quick confirmations for Rose and Jade, he’ll deal with the work stuff later, and puts his phone away again. It’s getting late, towards the end of open studio hours at the sculpture place Jake can never remember the name of despite his presence there at least three times a week, but what’s the point of being a god if you don’t get a few perks?

Jake picks up a chisel and hammer and steps back up to the statue, leaning in close to the belly of the statue so that he can keep etching in its scales. This is always his favorite part, as it’s hard to mess up, and it takes just long enough to be satisfying but not long enough to get boring. 

“Jake! How’s it coming over here?” 

A hand claps him on the shoulder, and Jake silently congratulates himself for the way he doesn’t flinch at the sudden contact. 

“Pretty swimmingly, I think,” Jake says, half-turning to smile at the instructor, a short troll woman named Kassie. “No pun intended.”

She laughs without sounding amused, but her smile says enough. “Let me know when you get up to the face, okay, I have an idea for a new technique for you to try.”

“Sounds splendid,” Jake says, and as Kassie moves on to the next person in the studio, he sinks comfortably into the knowledge that it actually _does_. He’s been getting really into sculpting since he officially quit the show and the public eye in general, and it’s been fantastic. 

Dirk had, of course, been upset when Jake asked Rose to tell him he was quitting, but he hadn’t pressed too much for the reason why. Jake misses him sometimes, still, in the way he misses the false simplicity of the past and the fact of having a bro to hang out with, but he’s been talking to Dave a lot more lately. Rose had encouraged the two of them to form a sort of “Post-Dirk” support group, and while they rarely talk about Dirk himself, it’s good and it helps. 

From what Jake has seen, Dirk’s been doing well too, he’s taken “Patch” out of the show name and has apparently turned it into a more audience participation-based, SBaHJ-inspired experience. The critics seem to like it at the very least, and the questions of the reason for Jake’s absence have long since died out, so… it’s good. There’s a frustration, an anger if Jake lets himself have that much, that Dirk is the one succeeding after all this while Jake is the one starting over, but Rose has taught him to care about that a little less.

Jake finishes one row of scales and crouches down a bit to reach the next. He’s two scales in when his hands slip slightly and the hammer comes down onto his thumb. “Ah, frig,” he mutters, shaking his hand out like that’ll do anything to help calm the nerves.

(“I’m no poet, of course, but I guess it feels kind of like when you stub your toe, and you shake it to make it stop hurting,” Jake says, looking down at his feet as he speaks and wiggling them to illustrate his point. “I think I can definitely thank all that tomfoolery with Dirk for all of this booze and partying business.”

Rose arches one eyebrow and takes a note on her paper. “It’s interesting that you say it was ‘with Dirk.’ It seems to me that everything that happened was more something that Dirk did to you.”

“I.. never really thought about it like that,” Jake says, and every instinct he has is screaming at him to divert, deflect, avoid, but he forces himself to look back up at Rose and add, “But I think that’s an apt descriptor for it. It was all, um, very Dirk motivated.”

Rose makes an encouraging noise. Jake leans back into the couch and keeps talking.)

The pain lasts for a few seconds, but Jake’s experienced much worse, and he’s already back to working by the time it fades. 

One scale after another after another, and somewhere in there is a metaphor for the days since that conversation with Jane, those hours upon hours in the motel. Some better than others, some unrecognizable as days or scales, depending on which side of the analogy Jake feels like at any given moment, some ephemeral, some longer than others and some far too short. They all line up in a row, one after another after another, and both sides of the analogy get a little better as the time passes. 

The memories have gotten rarer now; the past is immured in a tomb of stone and whatever the hell Rose’s uncomfortable purple couch is made out of. Things are good. Jake’s been sober since the motel with one minor exception he doesn’t count as enough of a big deal to even mention, and he hasn’t been surprised by his waking situation in quite some time. 

Jake shifts to the next row of scales. The sounds of people packing up for the night begin to echo around him, but he doesn’t make any move to come to a stopping point. After the scales, he’ll go home, but he has probably another hour yet. 

“Still doing alright, Jake?” Kassie says, briefly leaning in to inspect his work as she passes by. “Studio hours are almost up, but you’re welcome to stay longer if you don’t mind locking up for me again.”

“Yep and okie dokie,” Jake replies. He doesn’t take his eyes away from his work, doesn’t tear his attention away from the feeling of stone, strong and steady under his hand, doesn’t think about the past and accepts the present. Ugh. Sometimes he thinks Rose is a little too deep in his head, but… it’s good. She helps. 

Another scale, another hidden metaphor, this time something about weight. The weight of actions and the shoulders it falls upon. The weight of mistakes. The weight of the absence of gravitational force, which is to say, the weight of the absence of weight. Layers on layers, tucked half-under each other scales, weighing each other down and pulling each other up. 

Jake destroyed the first three statues he made the day he took them home, back to his mansion, finally, once he felt like he wouldn't fall apart if he left Jane's. Wood and stone were… considerably more difficult than glass was to break, but he always got there eventually. Bats and balconies and explosive bullets, hatchets and heat and holding onto the feeling of watching something fall apart, letting go of the thought that Dirk might be a similar voyeur. The first two times, it felt good. 

After the third one, though, the sight of his most effort yet lying in pieces on the floor, something about the statue’s rolling pearl eyes made Jake’s stomach turn. So much effort, so much temporarily-perceived beauty put to waste and sent scattering across the hardwood floors. It sucked. So he’s been thinking about keeping this one. Putting it out in the garden. Keeping up with it. Starting a collection.

The next scale that Jake etches in is a little wonky, though, so maybe he’ll just break this one too. The next one can be the beginning of the collection. Maybe it’ll be something new, something from Earth C instead of an old, dead planet. Maybe it’ll be the statue that jumpstarts Jake’s sculpture career and changes the purpose of Skaianet once again. Maybe the one he’s making right now will survive and protect him at night. Only time will tell.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so so much for reading, this fic is my baby and it means the world to me that it's being read! feedback is super duper appreciated! also feel free to come chat about fic/homestuck/life in general at my hs blog, @smuppetz on tumblr!
> 
> have a wonderful day <3


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